I agree on the "more elementary male teachers" thing (mostly for different reasons than everyone has presented, but that's neither here nor there), but there has been, for quite a while now, a view of teaching, especially at the elementary level, as not being a respectable profession. The profession of teaching, in many ways, falls into the same category as that of doctor or public servant ... "noble professions;" someone whose work serves society as a whole.
Somehow, however, this view has gotten lost, and teaching has become something of a second-class profession. I've had people tell me that teaching elementary school is a waste of my intelligence, and I honestly don't have the first clue how to respond to things like that. Um... if we're not expecting our best and brightest (not that i'm best and brightest, or even better and brighter, but I'd say I'm smarter than the average bear
) to go into education, they won't.
How does gender fit into all this? Well... whether our schools are failing them are not (I think they are, not to the degree that most here seem to think they are, and not in the same ways), men still hold most of the prestige/power in society. Traditionally, those in power choose "power" professions. This is changing somewhat as the ratio of men and women in post-secondary education shifts to the female side, but there is still a strong social implication that while it is perfectly
acceptable for a man to become an elementary school teachers (I know some GREAT, and some not-so-great for that matter, male primary school teachers), it's still a feminine domain, and therefore in many ways a step down. This hasn't, historically, always been the case. Education was once nearly strictly a strictly masculine domain.
And as for the original question, as to how or if our schools are failing our boys... I would, as some have mentioned, raise it up a level. Our
culture (as it is expressed both by our schools and innumerable other cultural conveyances), in many ways, fails our boys (and in doing so, our girls as well). Schooling exists in a society not just to teach facts, but to pass along cultural standards and such. Loathe as we may be to admit it, school is homogenizing by its very nature. This is part of why many people find homeschooling to be threatening... homeschooling takes the inherent power of social molding away from society as a whole, as expressed through the school, and puts it directly in the hands of individuals. Interestingly, compared to, say, the schools of the late 19th century, our schools are crazy hippie dens of creativity and free-thought. Of course, education was neither mandatory (oh, I could go on about this one for a while, but won't, since I've already bored you all to tears) by law nor required to make a living back then, so chances were that those still in school, both boys and girls, were actually interested in learning what was being taught.
Suffice it to say I voted "other." But what do I know, really... I spent my afternoon teaching a bunch of five to nine year olds how to sew felt dolls. A waste of intellect, some might say.
I have never been the type to compare children like that.
